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Tuesday, February 09, 2016

Math & Music

Anne Wooten Green, Sparksummarizes, "A common perception
is that music and mathematics are linked. Students who are in the
school band often perform well in math classes. Rachel Desmarais is a
believer in that perception."

Photo: Rachel M. Desmarais

Desmarais, 45, is
the executive vice president and chief operating officer at Forsyth
Technical Community College. As a music major at Mars Hill College, she
was also a math tutor. A few years after she graduated in 1992, she used
her degree to work in Christian education, directing choir and
coordinating youth activities at Olivet Moravian Church in
Winston-Salem.

In 1995, when she found that she needed to take a computer class to
handle the church budget, she enrolled in an Excel class at Forsyth
Tech. That was the first step by which her vocation—music—would
become her avocation, her hobby. She was hooked on computers from then
on.
“I remember I had to kind of weasel my way into
[the Excel class] because they wanted me to take a different class
before that one,” she says. “But I said ‘No, no, I have complete
confidence I can do this.’“It was an amazing class,” she adds. “I could
barely hang on. It was the perfect level to challenge me. Then I just
took some more computer classes.”She would eventually teach part time at the
college. Computers weren’t even a thought when Desmarais was attending
Mars Hill after years of piano and voice lessons. She began as a piano
major, then switched to a vocal performance major for her last two years
in college.Desmarais saw her future in music. “My plan had been to go on to graduate school and get a master’s degree in music.“In music, it’s kind of sad; teachers are often failed performers. So
they (faculty) want you to have the vocal performance degree. But I had
never had any intention of being an opera singer or anything like
that.”Then, after getting married at age 20, she
changed her focus. “An early marriage just derails a lot of people from
going on. I needed to work.” Desmarais had been trained to direct
choirs.Read more...

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About Me

Hello, my name is Helge Scherlund and I am the Education Editor and Online Educator of this personal weblog and the founder of eLearning • Computer-Mediated Communication Center.
I have an education in the teaching adults and adult learning from Roskilde University, with Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) and Human Resource Development (HRD) as specially studied subjects. I am the author of several articles and publications about the use of decision support tools, e-learning and computer-mediated communication. I am a member of The Danish Mathematical Society (DMF), The Danish Society for Theoretical Statistics (DSTS) and an individual member of the European Mathematical Society (EMS). Note: Comments published here are purely my own and do not reflect those of my current or future employers or other organizations.